


Cut To the Feeling

by pareidoliajules



Series: McHayward Prompt Extravaganza [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Prom, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 05:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13241697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pareidoliajules/pseuds/pareidoliajules
Summary: Mason needs a date to prom.





	Cut To the Feeling

“Jane. Jane  _please_? Jane!!”

“No, McCarthy. Go bug someone else.”

“Jane, there is nobody else to bug. There’s just you! You are the only person who will even talk to me.”

This gives Jane pause. “What do you mean?”

“J, I can’t go to prom with my  _sister_. Not if I want to live to see senior year! Which, by the way, I  _do_. So please please please come with me to prom. Please. I can’t go alone and if I don’t have a date…”

“If you don’t have a date, what?”

“If I don’t have a date, I’ll have to go with my  _sister_ , or I’ll have to go alone. Don’t make me go alone, J.”

She stared at him for a long time, looking for any trace of guile or sneakiness or ulterior motive, but when she was met with nothing but a searching, open puppy-dog-pouting face, she had to relent. She gave a deep sigh, held up her hands in surrender, and shook her head.

“Pick me up at 7, and make sure you get a purple corsage for me and a purple tie for you.”

“Should I wear my purple suit?”

“…No.”

“Can I tell people that you’re my girlfriend?”

“No!”

 

The thing is, Jane got really into it.

She hadn’t been planning on going to prom at all - nobody wanted to ask out the quiet, buttoned-down new girl that sniped at misogynistic teachers, and besides, she didn’t exactly see the point of purposefully spending more time at school than she had to, especially when it was decked out in ugly crepe paper and tacky fairy lights.

But she had the dress. Her mother had seen it and bought it for her, under the assumption that she would want one of the staples of the high school experience, now that she was at public school. It had been something of a fight, actually, but Jane still had the dress, and it seemed a shame not to wear it, even if she was just wearing it for the junior boy that didn’t have a date.

She got into it - she got into the way the dress settled on her hips, the way the shows her mother insisted on buying her allowed her a couple of extra inches, the way the makeup made her look more 22 than 12. She got kind of into the idea of it, anyway; she was almost excited, even though she’d never admit it.

7 rolled around and Jane was putting the finishing touches on her makeup and her hair when she heard the doorbell ring, followed immediately by her mother’s excited squealing from the kitchen. She rolled her eyes and left her room but hesitated before making her way down the hall - she could hear Mason’s excited babble in the hall and rolled her eyes again. He was good in Glee Club; he’d make a fine captain some day, Jane was sure, but he was still too green. Still too excited and excitable and distractable. He needed to be trained into the leadership qualities she glimpsed in him sometimes.

Not that she paid Mason McCarthy over-much attention, anyway.

“...Jane is just getting ready, let me--Janey? Jane, are you ready?” Jane winced at her mother’s nickname but made her way down the hall all the same, rolling her eyes goodnaturedly at her mother’s reaction:  _Oh, Janey, you look so grown up!_

What she did notice, though, was Mason’s reaction. Or Mason, full stop, honestly - he was dressed in a smart black tux with lapels of a respectable width, and an orchid pinned. In his hand was an orchid corsage to match, but none of this was what made Jane pause mid-step.

It was the look on his face.

It was like he’d never seen a girl before. Just, thuderstruck into silence, which Jane hadn’t truly thought was possible for him.

She was amazed to find that she was blushing.

“...What?” Jane finally said, and Mason blinked several times, rapidly, cleared his throat and shook his head, looked at his feet, looked at Jane’s mother, then looked back at Jane with the brightest grin she’d ever seen.

“Nothing. You just--you just look amazing, Jane.”

Jane let him fix the corsage to her wrist, even though his fingers were shaking and it took him three tries, and she let her mother take their picture on the stairs and in front of the door and in front of the car Mason had brought - Jane didn’t know where he’d gotten it, since it definitely was not the clunker van Madison drove them to school in every day. Jane hadn’t even known Mason could  _drive_.

But drive he did, straight to the dance; they’d decided against dinner, on account of this not being a  _date_. At least, not a real one.

Mason got out of the car and rushed over to open Jane’s door, which Jane found both amusing and mildly annoying - much like Mason himself. She let him offer his hand, though, and used it to slide out of the car as gracefully as she could - there was no reason her dress had to be messed up, after all.

She walked with him to the gymnasium; she could hear the music and the laughter inside, and she was going to make a joke to alleviate the tension she could feel building between them, but then she looked at Mason.

Mason was watching her, with the most earnest and soft expression, and when he spoke, he was quieter than she thought possible for him. “Thank you, Jane. For doing this. I--I really appreciate it. I know there’s probably a million guys you could have gone with, and I know I’m--I’m not the best date, but...um, I really want you to have a good time? Because it’s your prom. So. Um. Thanks, again.” Mason smiled at her then, relief and excitement creeping into his expression as he offered his elbow. “You ready?”

She managed a smile in return and slid her arm through his. “Ready.”

 

It really would have all been fine, if it weren’t for Kitty Wilde. An hour and a half of awkward dancing and smalltalk had worn on Jane, so she’d gone to get a drink; truly, she thought Mason might actually be happier with his sister, after everything. Kitty made some sneering comment--Jane couldn’t tell what it was, it wasn’t said direcly to her of course. It was said to a bunch of cheerleaders who giggled and tittered just the way stupid lackeys are supposed to whenever their bitchy bimbo said anything at all.

“What’s so funny, Wilde?”

Kitty narrowed her eyes at Jane and the trio of cheerleaders behind Kitty sent each other looks that ranged from  _are you serious_  to  _how dare you._ Kitty, for her part, looked simply vaguely amused.

“The idea of you actually coming here with one of the incest twins. I was just telling Gabrielle here, that  _had_  to be a rumor. Aren’t you supposed to be  _smart_? Or is this a pity thing?”

Jane bristled. “It’s not a rumor, Kitty.” She hadn’t been planning on drawing any more attention to herself, to Mason, to the fact that they were here together, than she absolutely could help, but there was something about Kitty Wilde that made Jane absolutely livid. Maybe it was the way she thought she was better than everyone else - or maybe it was the way everybody  _let_ her. The way everybody believed it.

Jane didn’t.

“Oh, so you  _are_  actually  _with_  McLoser over there?”

Mason was on the Cheerios! Wasn’t he supposed to be immune to Kitty’s poison? He was her  _teammate_. Something akin to protectiveness arose in Jane’s chest, and she gritted her teeth.

“Yes. He’s my date tonight. Why is that any of your business?”

“It’s not  _my_  business,” Kitty said with a dainty shrug. Oh, Jane hated her. “But his sister  _might_  kill you in a jealous fit. Watch your back, Hayward.”

And then Kitty and her chorus brushed past Jane and left her fuming.

Fuming and determined.

Mason was watching from across the gym with wide, terrified eyes - Jane made her way back to him and grabbed his hand.

“We’re dancing.”

“Oh--o-kay,” Mason said, scrambling to follow Jane to the dance floor. “Why--um--what’s--”

“We’re having a  _good time_ ,” Jane informed him as she guided his hand to her waist and clasped his other tightly. He bravely hid his wince. “Because you are my date, Mason McCarthy,” she continued with what was possibly the fakest smile she’d ever worn. “And since people are apparently going to talk no matter how we behave...” Jane spun under his arm, “we may as well enjoy ourselves. Yes?”

Mason caught her and moved them to the music, trying for a smile that came off more as a grimace. “Right, but, Jane, you don’t...you don’t have to do this. It’s--it’s just Kitty, Jane...”

Jane met his eye and held his gaze. “No. It’s not  _just_  Kitty. You wanted me to be your date so they’d shut up about you and your sister, right?”

“Yeah, but--”

“Okay. So we’ll make them shut up, once and for all.”

And then she kissed him.

If they were going to talk, she was going to give them  _all_  something worth talking about.

But then--none of that mattered. There was just her and Mason and his arm wrapping tighter around her waist and the way they slid against each other like it was the most natural thing in the world and  _oh_ \--

When she pulled back, Mason had that stunned shell-shocked look on his face again, and he let out a little breathy chuckle that Jane couldn’t help but echo.

“...That was a fake kiss.” Jane whispered, just for him. “For a fake prom date.”

“...It felt real,” Mason said, searching her face.

It felt real to her too.

“...It wasn’t.”

Mason hesitated for just a moment before he nodded. “...Right. Just to show Kitty and them?”

Jane nodded and let him tug her closer as the music shifted. A slow song, just in time for Jane to rest her head against Mason’s chest and hear the thud-thud-thudding of his heart, in perfect time with hers.

“Mason?”

“Hm?”

“Madison isn’t really going to kill me, is she?”

Mason’s laughter was low and beautiful. “Not unless she kills me first. I’m not saying this, but if she does, it’s just ‘cause she’s jealous.”

“Of me?”

Mason pulled back and quirked his eyebrow at her. “Of  _me_. You’re  _gorgeous_ , Jane, anybody would want--would want a fake kiss from you.”

“Oh.” Jane’s voice was soft and she felt herself nod, letting them go back to traditional slow-dance position. Her lips were still tingly and no matter how much she tried to convince herself that it was just for show, she couldn’t stop thinking about how  _right_  it had felt to kiss Mason. Mason, this overeager junior who looked at her like she hung the moon; Mason, who didn’t have any friends except his sister; Mason, who’d bucked up the courage to ask the new frigid girl to prom.

“Mason?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

Jane shrugged against him. She wasn’t quite sure herself; maybe the kiss, maybe the way he was holding her like she was something precious; maybe the way his laugh echoed in her and warmed her down to her toes.

“Jane?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you, too.”

Jane chuckled against him. “Any time.”

“Really?”

Jane was amazed to find that she meant it. She looked up at Mason and smiled. “Really. Any time you need a date so people won’t think you have an inappropriate relationship with your sister, you can ask me.”

Mason beamed. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

It probably was. That didn’t sit well with Jane, but she didn’t press the matter. Instead, she just rested back against him and let the song finish - when it did, Mason gently extricated himself and offered to get them both a drink, and Jane let him go.

She was amazed to find that he hadn’t so much as disappeared through the crowd than she missed him. She  _missed_  him.

She  _had_  to get a grip.

But then Mason was back and somehow the night passed in a blur and when he asked if she was hungry, she felt herself agreeing to go to some all-hours greasy-spoon diner with him, just to extend the evening a little longer. She got into it, the lights and the dancing and the trappings; she could admit that, to herself. She liked the way Mason looked at her.

 

When she finally got home, it was after midnight. Her feet hurt, her head hurt from all the things she’d done to her hair, her body ached from dancing and laughing, but...

But she didn’t regret it.

But it didn’t  _feel_  like a forced, fake date. The smile on her face was entirely genuine, and her mind drifting to Mason, wondering how he felt was against her will and absurd, but...

But she still didn’t regret it.


End file.
